


Into the Dollhouse

by embolalia



Series: BSG/Dollhouse AU [1]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Dollhouse
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 08:20:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7259884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embolalia/pseuds/embolalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lee found her, she was dancing with a stranger in a hip hop club and stared at him blankly, claiming her name was Katie, that she’d never seen him before in her life. Lee was too paralyzed to make a scene, but later her date caught him watching, gave him a phone number to call and a price. He crumpled it in his hand, but didn’t throw it out. It took only three days before he made the call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Dollhouse

“Are we there yet?” Starbuck purses her lips impatiently and Paul smiles as he glances at her, drumming him thumbs against the wheel.  
  
“Just about--” He pauses a moment, trying to remember her name this time. “Kara.”  
  
She snorts and leans her head against the window, muttering about how she could navigate the old bucket he’s driving better than he can.  
  
Paul doesn’t know who she used to be, knows no more about her than any of the others, but in this character Starbuck seems most at home. The lines around her eyes match her expressions, the grooves of old calluses on her hands seem to fit.  
  
Kara turns, raises an eyebrow when she finds him watching her. “Like what you see?”  
  
He offers an easy grin. “Always.” The stoplight turns green and he pulls out.  
  
She’s dressed more plainly than usual today, in a black t-shirt and dark jeans, aviators perched in her hair. When they reach the right house, Paul watches her walk as she strides up the front path and thinks that yes, that’s how her body is meant to move.  
  
The door opens before Starbuck reaches it and a man steps out, a man Paul’s seen before. Dark hair, blue eyes. The house isn’t anything special; Paul thinks he must spend all his money on Dolls. They’re holding each other now, not even kissing, just clinging like the world is ending -- or righting itself again.  
  
  


***

  
Lee slams the door and presses Kara back against it, claiming her lips for long kiss as he fits his body against hers.  
  
“Fuck,” she gasps, grinning, her hands clutching at his shoulders. His lips find her throat and he knows just where she’s most sensitive. God he’s missed hearing her whimper like this in his ear. Two years since she left, and he can count on both hands the number of times they’ve seen each other.  
  
Kara twists against him, her hands fumbling with his belt in her eagerness, and as she drops to her knees Lee can hardly breathe for anticipation. She takes him in hand, her tongue swirls around the head of his cock, and he can’t even think. Once she asked, half-worried, if he’d ever ordered her up as someone else, with a different skill set, willing to go beyond her usual boundaries. He told her the truth: he can’t imagine anything better than Kara exactly as she is.  
  
“Bedroom,” he moans as he gets close. They rarely make it to a bed, the first time anyway, but tonight he wants a mattress under them when he fucks her.  
  
Kara nods, kissing him again and then pulling away, shedding her t-shirt as she strolls toward his bedroom. She unclasps her bra and throws it over her shoulder, turning back just enough for him to see the curve of her breast. Lee nearly trips kicking off his pants as he follows her.  
  
Two weeks after his brother died in an Air Force training accident, and the morning after Lee and Kara finally had mind-blowing, guilt-ridden sex, she vanished. For months Lee made himself crazy grieving for both of them, and then one day he woke up and knew he had to find her. Whatever was between them wasn’t going away just because she was gone. He’d doubted nearly everything about himself, but he knew it was just as real for her as it was for him.  
  
Lee reaches the door to the bedroom and Kara’s waiting for him, naked in his bed, the sheets thrown shamelessly back. Their story is longer now than Kara and Zack’s ever was, and guilt is just a flicker in the back of Lee’s mind as he strips off the rest of his clothes and approaches the bed. He grabs Kara’s ankle and she laughs at him until he starts kissing his way down her calf. Her breath hitches as he reaches the back of her knee; she says his name sharply as he settles between her legs and runs his tongue along the inside of her thigh. He tries not to think about what she does when she’s not with him, but he’s certain no one knows her like this.  
  
When Lee found her, she was dancing with a stranger in a hip hop club and stared at him blankly, claiming her name was Katie, that she’d never seen him before in her life. Lee was too paralyzed to make a scene, but later her date caught him watching, gave him a phone number to call and a price. He crumpled it in his hand, but didn’t throw it out. It took only three days before he made the call.  
  
“ _Please,_ ” Kara begs, and he can’t deny her. Lee kisses his way up her belly, between her breasts, until he captures her lips again. She rolls them over, staring down at him as she aligns their bodies. He thrusts up into her with a groan. Kara’s eyes close at the intensity of it, and then she opens them, holding his gaze as they move together.  
  
That first time she looked limp and dazed when they brought her to his door, but as soon as it closed Kara started screaming at him, fighting him. Lee had to wrestle her to the ground before she’d stop and finally she collapsed, sobbing. Through her tears she told him the truth: she’d made a bad call that got Zack killed. The Dollhouse promised her an end to the guilt and the grief, and she took it. That whole night, he just held her, still in the middle of the living room floor. In the morning all he had were bruises from her fists and the words she’d whispered as she left:  _we should do this again sometime._  
  
Kara’s face contorts as she comes and it’s the most beautiful thing Lee’s ever seen. She arches, then collapses on his chest as the pleasure takes her and he holds her close, his body still demanding release but content just to be near her, to feel her staccato breath on his chest and to hear her panting his name.  
  
Later, when they’ve reduced themselves to a tangle of limbs too weary for anything but sleep, Lee says what he always says, what he can’t not say. “We could just run away. We could go anywhere in the world, anywhere at all. You and me, Kara, that’s all that matters.”  
  
But just like always, Kara shakes her head and turns away from him, curling her back against his chest. He holds on tightly and doesn’t ask her why.  
  
  


***

  
Kara puts her sunglasses on before she leaves the house. Her eyes are brimming with tears and if Lee sees it will be that much harder to go. As it is she kisses him goodbye and thinks he must taste salt on her lips from the way he looks at her with such loss.  
  
She climbs into the car with a nod to Paul, and forces herself not to look back. Lee has never understood penance the way she means it, that every moment of their happiness has to be paid for. There’s still too much grief and danger in the world, and she hasn’t earned any reprieve from it that she’s ever gotten.  
  
“Are you alright?” Paul asks as they drive. “Have a good night?”  
  
Kara closes her eyes behind the mirrored lenses, sees Lee’s face as he slept. She stayed up all night rather than miss a moment and now her body aches with exhaustion and the memory of him.  
  
She doesn’t answer Paul’s question. There is no answer she could give that he would understand. Instead Kara takes off her sunglasses and rubs the last hint of a tear from her eye. “I need a treatment.”


End file.
